According to the FBI, the U.S. witnessed 160 hostile events that killed 486 and wounded 557 (not including suspect injuries or deaths) from 2000-2013. These tragic incidents robbed families of loved ones and citizens of their peace of mind – and challenged first responders, healthcare providers and facility managers.

During the years 2014 and 2015, there were 40 incidents that resulted in 231 casualties not including perpetrator outcomes.

Then over the course of less than 17 months, from June 2016 through November 2017, three outliers created more than half of the bloodshed that occurred from 2000 through 2013 during just three active shooter incidents in Orlando, Las Vegas and Texas. Let that sink in – over 50% of the havoc previously inflicted during the course of 13 years, occurred in less than a year and a half in our country. In fact, two of the deadliest tragedies on record happened within 5 weeks of each other.

The 46-member Technical Committee includes authorities from the fire service, law enforcement, EMS, federal agencies, healthcare, private security, universities, and local jurisdictions, among others. Participants are sharing front line lessons and operational insight as they strive to produce the first national standard on active shooter and hostile events. The document will provide a framework for organizations around the world to establish protocols that are aligned with unified response strategies.

Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security; Department of Justice; the FBI; NSA; emergency response agencies, and others have established the preparedness, response and recovery benchmarks with a focus on civilian and responder safety. Learn more about NFPA 3000, and take action by:

I will say, locally, we've done a lot of table top exercising, talking and general planning, but not enough real world training. We find that one major stumbling block is the law enforcement community's deep seated need to protect everyone from the moment they are made aware of a hazard. This means they spend a lot of time, resources and energy thinking about, and protecting other fire and EMS responders from being harmed, while also being woefully understaffed.

Almost every time we've suggested that our Fire & EMS personnel can at least help in a warm zone environment or with evacuations behind the entry team we've been told absolutely not. The issue is they could have trained personnel who regularly accept a higher level of risk upon themselves for the sake of others, but instead would have us outside the lines watching as untrained civilians are in harms way and inadequate resources to handle them.

It's not that fire & EMS personnel wish to go up against a shooter, but we know that victims who are left without basic first aid die before the scene is declared safe. It is time for inter-discipline training and coordination that will allow a greater number of resources to begin actively removing and treating victims. We know this is being done in more progressive areas, but it needs to be spread to the rest of the country via the FBI or some other group the overall law enforcement community will listen to.

I think the amount of law enforcement organizations and agencies that are participating as technical committee volunteers and assisting in the development of NFPA 3000 demonstrates that there is very much a push at an organizational and national level for law enforcement to be inclusive rather than exclusive in these scenarios. In the draft that is now open for input, the committee shows this commitment by including chapters for law enforcement competencies and one for unified command. Also, there are medical care requirements that are referenced in the competencies that encourage integrated response and unified command.

So now the harder question is; How do we get this standard and these concepts in front of everyday, local responders on a national and international level? This is the time as the draft of the standard is open for input from the public and gives them an opportunity to participate in the consensus process and see that their voices will be heard. All (Fire, Law Enforcement, and EMS) need to see that they are a part of this and that this is what is needed to potentially save more lives.

I am hopeful and doing my best to share the draft with my colleagues and networks and I hope everyone that reads this makes an effort to do the same.

Good Morning. First, thank you for sharing your story and the perspective from those you have trained with. I have heard the same in the past and let me share some insight. I am a firefighter and medic as well as a veteran and medical security specialist. RTF has been one of my specialties for quite awhile now.

A local fire department hired me to consult them and their police department to develop a plan to deal with an active shooter in their high school. My team and I proposed and discussed RTF. The FD was all on board but the PD chief flat out said "NO". FD stays outside until we clear the building. Despite my objections and data (from Columbine HS shooting!) I took this to be a learning opportunity and here is what we did.

Rather than have "static" vital signs on our volunteer patiients, we asked a local medical examiner to give us sets of vital signs that would be expected at 10 minutes after point of injury (POI), 20 minutes after POI, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and all the way to an hour and placed them on cards around each "patients" neck. We called them "dynamic VS's" in that they recognize a patients VS change from the POI to a time later.

The exercise began, the PD went into the building and it took 45 minutes to clear the building. They then called the FD in and they found 8 patients. First medical contact to the first patient was 54 minutes after incident began. The FD saw the cards, looked at their watches, and found each patient as expired. The FD took patient out, the PD chief was proud to show off that all the students had survived until we informed him, the mayor, and the superintendent, that the patients were actually all dead, discussed how he would address the media and families (we had parent actors as well harassing PD to let them in). We didn't pull a fast one on him. He knew about the "dyanamic" vital signs.

The next year, a Dept. of Defense facility in the same city asked if we could do an active shooter training on their property. This time we reconvened and used the RTF approach between all municipalities and public safety assets. To make a long story short, first medical contact was at 14 minutes. Same VS's were used and in the same "dynamic" set up. All patients survived.

My point: Set up two exercises that can be compared side by side to show that RTF is the better option. Use the predicated failure as a learning opportunity. Further, I would be willing to share and discuss with you and your group anything I have to include a presentation I made at a medical symposium taht showed the significant differences between an RTF response and a "traditional" clear and hold model. Contact me at beerst@ccf.org , 216-312-0933 (cell) or Twitter @fire_leadership

I am a E.M.T with 25 years experience working in different levels from ambulance to First Responders. I am also a Business partner instructor with ALICE and a Stop the Bleed instructor certified by the American College of Surgeons. Two years ago our County Sheriffs Dept initiated an RTF team consisting of all volunteers from local volunteer Fire Departments and EMS units. The RTF consists of Operators and EVAC teams that respond to active shooters and mass casualty incidents. We train monthly with the Sheriff's Dept to go into warm zones. We have specialized equipment, mega movers, vests, bleed and airway control equipment. We use the B.A.T.H. assessment. We were told this would never work using volunteers. Having run several live scenario training's in local schools and businesses, State and Local Emergency management personnel observed these training's and concluded that it indeed can and does work. There are folks out there that are territorial and need to get past that thinking as we know in today's world all levels and departments need to work/ train together in these type s of circumstances.

One important item for NFPA to look at is fire alarm activation. In the recent Florida School Shootings the shooter pulled the fire alarm knowing that persons would gather and leave the building making a mass casuality situation more effective.

An engineering solution is needed that addresses this issuse for schools and places of assembly and still alert persons of fire situations. Perhaps a pre-warning system(s) coupled with Public Address system could be developed in certain facilities with auto Sprinkler Systems that alert persons to standby and wait further instructions from builiding fire wardens.

Hi Thomas. I checked with my colleague Robert Solomon, Division Manager for Building and Life Safety Codes, for his feedback. Here is what he had to say.

Thank you for your comment on this particular issue. Use of building fire protection and fire safety systems as an accessory to targeted violence events, whether it be in a school or other occupancy, have previously been identified as an issue that the codes need to address. Coupled with shelter in place and delayed egress options, we can no longer wait and continue to study or defer action on this issue. The NFPA School Safety, Codes and Security Workshop Report issued in May 2015, in fact, identifies these issues as work items for code organizations, including NFPA, that need to be addressed. While we have options out there such as pre-signal and positive alarm sequence that are recognized by NFPA 72, National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code, these systems have been used judiciously in the codes. In this current environment, however, it is time for such systems to get another look for a wider variety of occupancies than we currently allow. Likewise, determining alternative responses for the occupants other than immediate evacuation now has to be considered. While we have made some progress with our 2015 report, much more can be and must be done. The current editions of NFPA 1, NFPA 101 and NFPA 5000, for example, did address workshop report recommendations dealing with door locking and mass notification systems and procedures. The need to look at cross-training and cooperation between law enforcement, EMS and fire department personnel was also a major theme of the workshop report and that precisely is what the development of NFPA 3000 is all about.

As we are starting the revision process for the 2021 editions of the three major NFPA codes that deal with the built environment, we have a major task at hand which centers around integrating security as a part of our established historical goals and objectives in these codes. We also need to make sure that we apply this thinking across the board to all occupancies and not strictly to schools. As noted in the workshop report, “School administrators and parents must make sure that security needs are not viewed as an afterthought or as a substitute for other safety measures (such as fire safety). Security is in addition to the other building and operational elements that help to keep the educational environment safe.” Collectively, we will move to get more of these issues addressed sooner rather than later.

The first thing that came to my mind when I heard about the Florida school incident is that as we look at balancing fire protection vs. these active shooter situation we could likely protect each classroom as a "shelter in place" safe space with and egress widow. Rated doors, rated walls and sprinklers all would allow time to evaluate the real threat and act accordingly. In the fire service we know that situations dictate tactics, but we have looked as school fire alarms as a one tactic only scenario, and now we can see this is obviously not the best approach.

In all likelihood we will not totally disarm our citizens, thus we will always have the potential for an active shooter scenario, it is time to look at how we can protect our children from harm in a realistic way. Let's cost the overall financial impact of total disarmament of US citizens and then use that figure as the basis to fund properly protecting schools.